


call me, call me any, anytime

by likebrightness



Category: Smash (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-20
Updated: 2014-04-20
Packaged: 2018-01-20 01:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1492243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likebrightness/pseuds/likebrightness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He calls her, on occasion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	call me, call me any, anytime

-

The first time she calls him, it’s to make sure she can’t provide any more information to them while they consider her for the role. He makes it very clear that just because she has his number does _not_ , in any way, mean she should use it.

He hangs up before she can apologize.

Half of her thinks he’s an asshole who’s still pissed at her for rejecting him. The other half is certain she has irreparably damaged her career and will never land a role ever again.

-

He calls her, on occasion. Nothing special, just to tell her about changes in rehearsal times, what songs they’ll be working on, things like that. He tends to snark at her, about her clothes or police actions on the subway or golden “whatever” champion.

The first time he did it, she cursed at him as soon as she hung up the phone.

One time he says something about not singing too loudly next to Ivy and she just isn’t putting up with that.

“What if I bring her a pair of earplugs?”

He actually laughs.

-

There’s no way she can make rehearsal, not with this godawful cold.

When she calls to tell him she’s sick he says he’s not her mother and he’s not going to hold her hand ’cause she _doesn’t feel good_ and if she’s out for more than a day he’ll have to replace her.

The third day she’s out, chicken soup she didn’t order gets delivered to her apartment.

-

Ivy calls Derek when she and Karen are drunk after the disaster at _Heaven on Earth_.

He doesn’t pick up.

She calls again, and the third time she leaves a slightly slurred message Karen tries not to listen to.

Karen calls him, almost sober, after dropping Ivy off at her apartment. He picks up on the second ring, just as she realizes it’s past midnight.

“What?” he says.

“Something happened. I thought you’d want to know.”

She relays the story, the _Heaven on Earth_ part, and leaves out the part where they drunkenly sang in Times Square. Doesn’t mention how she’s pretty sure he avoided Ivy’s calls.

-

She calls him that night, after Dev—attacks him, or whatever he did. After she and Dev fight, again. After Dev closes the door to the bedroom.

He sounds bitter, over the phone, which isn’t particularly unusual. He’s _fine_ , he says, and she knows he is, but she cradles the phone against her ear and asks again anyway.

“I’m fine, Karen,” he says again, but doesn’t sound so bitter this time.

At rehearsal he always shouts her name, uses the whole thing— _Karen Cartwright!_

She likes it better like this.

Before she can think about that too long, though, she hears Ivy’s voice in the background and Derek mutters a quick goodbye and is gone.

-

The ensemble doesn’t have to be in until nine tomorrow, an hour later than usual, so of course they are celebrating. And of course celebrating means tequila shots at a karaoke bar.

She likes these people. A lot. It’s nice to have friends to do things with, even if they take bets on if she’s going to cry in rehearsal. And they get her more than a lot of people do—especially Dev’s friends, and even Dev sometimes, who really don’t understand the theatre and the work that goes into it.

“Karen!” Bobby has a tendency to shout when he gets drunk. Then he puts on a horrible fake British accent and yells, “ _Karen Cartwright_!” and almost falls off his stool giggling.

Karen’s had two shots but suspects Bobby may have had a few more.

“We’re doing a duet!” he announces when he’s upright on his stool again. “I’m picking our song for a duet.”

“Okay, Bobby,” she says, because it is almost always better to humor him. Plus, he’s kind of her favorite, as terrible as he can be, and a duet sounds fun.

Her phone rings before he chooses a song, Derek’s name across the screen. Bobby tries to steal the phone from her but she’s sober enough to have significantly faster reflexes.

“You can’t pick up your phone! We’re doing a duet!”

“Pick the song and I’ll sing it with you in a minute, I swear!” she laughs, and heads for the bathroom where Derek won’t have to hear the terrible version of “I Drove All Night” that someone is doing right now.

She picks up at the last minute, ducking into the women’s bathroom. It’s still pretty loud.

“Karen,” he says, then, “My god, where the hell are you?”

She normally wouldn’t laugh on the phone with him, is normally more guarded than that, when it comes to him, but her chest is feeling warm and she can still taste tequila in her mouth; she laughs. “A karaoke bar?”

There’s a pause, and she likes to think it’s because he’s picturing her there.

“Right. Well,” she’s not sure if the smile she hears in his voice is real or if she’s making it up. “I suppose you can stay out a bit later than planned. I won’t be needing you until ten. I will, however, be needing you _not_ obnoxiously hungover. And for the love of God, don’t wear that green striped monstrosity that you call a sweater.”

“This from the man who owns an ankle-length trench coat,” she giggles. “Was that left over from a Halloween where you went as Dracula?”

This time, she can tell the smile is real. “Goodnight, Karen,” and he hangs up.

Her own smile in the mirror looks goofy, which she’s pretty sure means she should have another tequila shot. Especially since she just got an extra hour off.

Halfway back to the bar, Bobby practically tackles her.

“ _First_ , we are singing Calculus by 2gether, the greatest fake band in the history of fake bands. And _second_ , did you get the text?”

“What text?” she tries to ask, but Jenna and Sam appear with two shots each, and Jenna with a triumphant scream that drowns out Karen’s words. 

She gives a shot to Karen, and Sam gives his extra to Bobby.

“To ten AM!” Jenna shouts.

“To ten AM!” the boys shout back.

Karen joins them in clinking glasses, tequila sloshing all over their fingers, and they throw the shots back.

“We got the text from Linda while you were on the phone,” Sam explains while Jenna and Bobby yell about whose turn it is in karaoke. “Weren’t sure if you had seen.”

Karen checks her phone for a message she knows isn’t there. She’s never once gotten a text from Linda. But she nods. “Yeah, must’ve come through when I was talking to Dev. Nice.”

She’s terrified that Sam’s going to know she’s lying, but instead he joins the debate about who should sing next. They wander back to the bar as they argue, to where the rest of the ensemble is also celebrating an extra hour off.

“Thank God for texts from Linda!” someone yells, and everyone shouts, “To Linda!” and takes a swig of whatever is in their glass.

Karen’s pretty sure everyone in the bar thinks they are drunken idiots. As for herself, she just feels like a regular idiot.

How could she have never questioned that he called? He’s the director, of course he isn’t going to call everyone in the cast to let them know when to come in, or what song they’ll be working on in the morning. She doesn’t even need to know what song they’ll be working on, usually; it’d be fine if she just found out at rehearsal.

Derek doesn’t have to call; he chooses to call. She’s honestly not sure what to think of that information.

She wonders if he calls Ivy, then remembers they’re sleeping together and he probably just tells her that night in bed. She leans over the bar to order another shot and pretends the twinge in her stomach is from the tequila.

-

Three months later, drunk again, Karen thinks about that night. They’re going to Boston in four days, and she goes to a bar alone. She’s feeling a little sorry for herself, but the alcohol fixes that.

When she’s not-quite stumbling out of the bar to walk home, she thinks about that night. Apparently she has a habit of drinking to forget about things—that she’s not Marilyn, that her boyfriend is working late again, that Derek calls her, and only her. Her clouded mind decides that means she should call him.

“’lo?”

He sounds exhausted, and she realizes it’s almost one am. She thinks about hanging up.

“Karen?”

Oh, she could get used to the way her name sounds in his sleep heavy voice.

“Hi,” she says, meekly. She can’t remember why she called.

“Are you okay?” he asks, and sheets rustle in the background.

“Yes.”

A pause. She imagines him sitting on the edge of his bed, maybe just in boxers, rubbing a hand over his face. She imagines him barefoot, padding to the kitchen for a glass of water.

“Are you drunk?” he says eventually.

“Yes?” She feels a little like her parents are catching her sneaking home from a party in high school.

There are more noises from his side of the phone, but she can’t decipher what they are. She understands his heavy sigh, though.

“Darling, what are you doing?”

It’s not clear if he means _right now_ or _with your life_ , so she responds to the one she knows the answer to. “Walking home. It’s like, a lot of blocks. Which is good, because it will work the alcohol out of my system so I’m not hungover tomorrow.”

“Why didn’t you take a cab?”

“I just said—do you even listen? It will work the alcohol out of my system.”

He sighs again. She knows he’s probably exasperated, but he keeps asking her questions; if he wanted out of the conversation, he could just hang up. Instead he says, “Where were you out drinking?”

She tells him the name of the bar, doesn’t want him to know she was alone. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” He says, “It’s fine,” but she talks over him. “You probably need your sleep. Still a lot of work to do with Rebecca.”

Rebecca’s been nice—to the point of buying her _a lot_ of stuff—but it doesn’t mean Karen likes her. Or is at all okay with her being Marilyn.

“Look, Karen,” he sounds exasperated, “you know I’d rather—”

He breaks off. A car horn honks, over the phone or in the distance, she’s not sure. She wants him to keep talking.

“How many blocks do you have left?” he asks.

“Um,” she drags the word out as she cranes her head to read the street sign she just passed. “Seventeenth. So twenty-something still, about?”

His apartment might be closer, she thinks, probably is as the crow flies anyway. She’s just been there that once but...it was memorable, to say the least.

He’s silent on the other end of the phone, and she’s tempted to ask what he’s doing. Except what he’s doing is talking to a drunk girl who woke him up in the middle of the night for no particular reason.

“Okay good talking to you, I should probably go, sorry,” she says all at once and hangs up before he can respond.

Of course that’s when a car pulls up next to her, right when she hangs up and doesn’t have anyone to freak out to about the fact that she’s about to be murdered. The passenger window rolls down and—it’s Derek.

He _would_ have a car in New York City.

“Let me give you a ride home, Karen,” he says.

“I’m fine. The walk’s doing me good. It’s—”

“Working the alcohol out of your system. I know.”

She smiles; he _does_ listen. She keeps walking, wonders how long he’ll drive beside her. 

“Karen,” he sounds weary. “You’re wearing heels.”

She is, but it’s not like she hasn’t, you know, been _dancing_ in heels on stage for a few months, so walking home isn’t the biggest deal in the world. She kind of likes that he notices, though, wonders if he thinks her legs look nice. They do, so. He should.

“Karen, please let me give you a ride home.”

She likes how often he’s saying her name, but it’s the _please_ that gets her. Like it’s something he wants to do, for himself, not just for her.

“Since you asked so nicely,” she says, and he stops the car so she can climb in. “My place is—”

“I remember,” Derek says quietly. He’s only been there once, but she supposes getting punched in the face on a street might make you remember its name. Before she can apologize, again, for that whole thing, he continues. “Do you think it’s altogether wise to walk thirty blocks home by yourself at one am?”

“It’s not my job to ensure I’m not raped; it’s men’s jobs not to rape.” She may have been a theatre major, but she took a gender studies class in college, too.

He sighs in the way she knows means he’d be rolling his eyes at her if he were more dramatic. “Be that as it may,” he says, “there are plenty of men in the world who would attempt to take advantage of you.”

“Would you?” Apparently her filter is malfunctioning.

He just looks at her, and her drunk mind is too addled to know how to feel. 

Her hungover mind, the next morning, feels 100% mortified.

-

She’s back in Iowa for Christmas, with too many relatives to count, and is so happy to have an excuse to get away from what would be an hour long discussion—read: critique—of her life choices with Uncle Jim that she doesn’t even glance at her phone before picking it up.

“Hello?” She closes the bathroom door against the noise of twenty different conversations.

“Karen. I hope I’m not interrupting.”

She recognizes his voice, obviously. But she’s so surprised that he’s calling that she pulls her phone away from her ear to check the caller ID.

“No,” she says then. “Not at _all_.”

He laughs, and it makes her smile.

“How’s the family?”

“ _Big_ ,” she says. “Great, but _big_.”

“Better than awful, even if small.”

“True.”

She shuffles her feet, flips open a magazine on the counter.

Derek eventually clears his throat. “I just wanted to say happy Christmas. I hope it’s wonderful.”

“Thanks! You, too!” she exclaims. She thinks about asking him what he’s doing, but he clears his throat again.

“This year—” He pauses, tries again, “You’ve made—” He sighs. Karen doesn’t take a breath, like maybe if she stays frozen, he won’t spook. He seems to have given up on whatever he was trying to say, though. “I hope your Christmas is wonderful.”

If they were in the same city—she doesn’t even know if he’s in New York or London—she thinks she’d find him, buy him a drink, who knows what else.

Instead, her voice is quiet when she says, “You, too. Really.”

She doesn’t know what he was going to say, but she’s pretty sure the same goes for her.

-

She auditions for the next show he’s doing. Honestly, she’s pretty pissed she had to audition, but she’s trying not to be a diva, so she does it without complaint.

When the casting director calls to let her know they’re _going in a different direction_ , though, she’s not staying quiet about that.

“Are you kidding me, Derek?” she says when he picks up the phone.

He clears his throat. “Karen. So nice to hear from—”

“No, shut up. You don’t get to make me audition and then _not give me the part_ and not even have the balls to tell me yourself.”

“Darling,” he sighs. “I told you not to audition. I told you you should do something else. You have so many options. I don’t want—”

“You don’t want to work with me.”

“ _No_ ,” he says immediately, loudly. “You are a terrific actress and you would be wonderful in this show.”

It’s probably the nicest he’s been to her the entire time they’ve known each other. Still.

“But...?” she offers.

“But you need to work with other people. I’d take you as my star in everything I direct from here on out, but that’s not what your career needs. Go work with someone else and be particularly great, and then do it again with someone else, and then come back and we’ll do something together.”

She is silent. That was...not what she was expecting. He seems to have thought more seriously about her career than she has. She tries to say something, starts about three different sentences without finishing any of them.

“All right,” she says finally. “You could have just told me that.”

“I tried. About six times before you auditioned. You’re a bit stubborn, did you know that?”

“Yeah, well,” she laughs, and is glad he can’t see her blush. “I guess I’ll call you in a few years when I’m done with all these other projects.”

He chuckles like she’s said something dumb. “Right. Because Lord knows I don’t want to hear from you unless we’re working together.”

Honestly, she hasn’t really thought of him as a friend. He is, of course—they do lunch together and don’t only talk about work, and she goes to his apartment enough the doorman knows her name—but she still talks about him as “my director,” even if he’s not anymore. But yeah, sure, she could call him if they’re not working together.

Except she’s already overanalzying, psyching herself out.

It’s just that if he’s really not her director anymore, well. She decided early on she was not going to be the girl who slept her way into a role. Obviously she thought about Derek, she would have even if he hadn’t had her over to his apartment that first night. But on top of the boyfriend and the age difference and the general fact that he could really be a dick sometimes, she pushed everything aside because she was _not_ sleeping with her director.

The thought of calling him has a lot more weight if they’re not working together.

She realizes she’s taking too long to respond, but not before he’s already talking again.

“Oh for God’s—how’s this—dinner? Next week?”

“Uh—” She swallows hard. “Yeah. Dinner. Tuesday?”

“Sounds good. Nothing fancy. I’ll pick you up at eight.”

He hangs up. It reminds her of their first phone conversations, with him always hanging up before she’s ready for the conversation to end.

There’s a few seconds where she very consciously breathes in and out and tells herself not to overthink this. That’s a futile demand, of course, and she ignores it and starts worrying about what to wear.


End file.
